Rock Band 4 Is Introducing A Season Pass, Here's How It Works

Harmonix has a plan to inject a bit of extra life into Rock Band 4 by introducing a season pass for the game. You all know what a season pass means, right? It means new DLC, which means more songs to play, more music to rock out to, and more fun with friends.

Over on the Harmonx forum, the developers announced that there will be a new Season 2 Spotlight Pass for Rock Band 4 on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The second season pass will run you $13.49, and will be available digitally via the PlayStation Store or the Xbox Store starting August 24th. The duration of the second season pass will only last up until October 17th, 2017, giving gamers eight weeks of new content to look forward to.

Each week the developers will release a new song, totaling eight songs for the eight weeks to last the duration of the season. Each of the DLC songs that will be part of the Season 2 Spotlight Pass will be a Spotlight Song, and will also be featured in the Rivals Mode challenge in Rock Band 4.

The feedback in the forum is interesting. Some gamers are all-in, others are a bit reluctant, and few more had some pertinent questions about the season pass songs. For instance, some asked if any of the songs would be rewind songs in the pack from previous Rock Band games.

It's a good question to ask, because some gamers aren't entirely thrilled about paying close to $14 for another Rock Band 4 season pass if some of the songs will be repeats. Others were just glad that some new content is coming to Harmonix's music title.

The developers haven't had the easiest go of it on the market lately. Recently it announced that Rock Band Blitz was being taken off of digital distribution storefronts for home consoles after the music licenses expired. For those who purchased the DLC it was still possible to port over some of the songs into Rock Band 3 and Rock Band 4 after going through a few hoops and taking a few steps to get the songs into the newer games.

Harmonix also had to self-publish the latest Rock Band title along with Mad Catz, which removed a lot of the safety nets usually associated with having a major publisher heading up the logistics for getting game promoted, financed, up and out for major consoles. The developers also attempted to run a crowdfund campaign in order to work on a PC version of the game.

A lot of the troubles started from the over-saturation of music games during the late aughts, where EA and Activision kept pumping out a ton of music-rhythm titles and then began loading those titles up with inordinate amounts of DLC. There were more games and DLC than what the average consumer could keep up with, and eventually sales and interest tapered off.

Harmonix managed to make a return to the fold in 2015 with Rock Band 4 and it did well enough that it was able to receive some additional DLC. The second season of DLC will get underway at the end of the month.